Some Practical Lessons in Management: A Book Review

If you are looking for a book imparting management lessons backed by some shimmering jargon and quotes from famous experts in the field adorning its pages, this one is bound to disappoint you.

In case you have a researcher’s attitude and are hoping to unearth some new facts or discovering new management theories, you will find nothing here that may excite you or whet your appetite for a scholastic understanding of the science and art of management. 

However, if you believe that the real world of management has lot of experiential learning to offer and that values and ethics play a crucial role in the sustained success of a business organization, you would be delighted to have come across this book, entitled Practical Lessons from Great Managers.

By the time you devour this plain vanilla offering, you would have realized that a formal management degree is but a launching pad of sorts. It is not essential to achieve success in one’s career. It may be merely desirable so as to advance your career prospects, especially given the corporate world’s preference for formal degrees.

The author of the book, Mr. Ramesh Subramaniam, offers keen insights into the practice of management. Based on his five decades long experience in the leather footwear industry and in industrial promotion, he shares his experiences in a very lucid manner. The narrative has an easy flow and touches upon various concepts, drawn from his observations about the kind of situations and challenges faced from time to time. The book is arranged in 14 chapters and runs into 104 odd pages. The presentation is not chronological in order. Rather, it takes up a concept and develops it across the entire span of his career.

Written to impart acquired knowledge, the book categorically deals with such facets of management like communication, strategy, integrity, customer relations, leadership, policies, innovation and the like. The underlying messages are very clear – the importance of training one’s mind, decision making based on sound values and cultivating a passion for continuous learning. This is akin to Stephen R. Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, exhorting managers to always keep their ‘saw sharpened.’

One of the typical practices which define a manufacturing mindset of yesteryears is brought out rather clearly in the book – that of employers taking a jaundiced view of employees taking leaves! Yet another is that of treating physical availability as a sign of higher productivity. In the current pandemic driven operations, where work-from-home has proved its value, albeit in other sectors of the economy, some of these notions may not be relevant.   

I confess I had the good fortune of working with the author of the book for close to five years when we were together at the Footwear Division of Tata International. He was thorough in whatever he took up, was a good teacher and always encouraged me to maintain two diaries – one for routine work, another to keep a meticulous record of new things learnt on the job.

If you wish to learn creative problem-solving in such organizations as Bata, Tata, FDDI and Sri City, this is precisely the book you are looking for. If you are curious to know how such organizations follow ethics and values and how managers therein resolve the dilemmas inherent in such cases, it is a must-read.

Going through a pragmatic book of this kind, penned by a management veteran, is a pleasure. It would surely be a worthwhile journey for those who aspire to survive and excel in the corporate jungle! 

 

(Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/dp/1636401961
Flipkart: https://www.flipkart.com/practical-lessons-great-managers/p/itmaf7071c6a6eb8?pid=9781636401966)

      

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